or a man to bang out a book like this at the age of 70 is absolutely obscene stuff. Most probably my book of the year thus far and having read all of JMcG’s prose works now up there with The Dark for his crowning achievement. 314 pages with no chapter breaks and a complete non-plot and yet the sheer beauty of it is so striking that you can’t put it down. Little narrative threads flicker in and out as an incredible pattern of variation and repetition builds up. Ruttledge might stretch some credibility with how much of a goody two-shoes he is but given the unremitting bleakness of the rest of his canon I’ll let JMcG off